


The World (It's Turning Inside Out, Yeah)

by firstbreaths



Category: Glee
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2013-11-04
Packaged: 2017-12-31 11:33:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1031222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstbreaths/pseuds/firstbreaths
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>He should have known that heading 3000 miles in the wrong direction from Broadway was an inaccurate spin of his own professional compass; it was never going to work out.</i> Or, after LA finally disagrees a little too much with him, Jesse heads back to Ohio to win Rachel back, only to end up spending most of his time with Blaine Anderson and Santana Lopez, instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The World (It's Turning Inside Out, Yeah)

Blaine’s house is eerily quiet with no one home, and Jesse sighs at how easy the lock was to pick., before settling himself at the table, hands clasped on top of it as he hums to himself to fill the silence.

Given his current state of melancholy, Joni Mitchell has  _never_ seemed more appropriate.

Blaine will be home from his doctor’s appointment soon, unless he decides to stop at the Lima Bean first, and Jesse sits and waits, decidedly not thinking about flirty duets in a music store across the road and Rachel holding his hands over a cup of coffee, making it worth the wait while the baristas struggled to get his order exactly right. Apparently not thinking about it does little for the churning in his stomach, though, so he settles for standing up and searching through the Andersons’ fridge, not sure what to make of the various take out containers scattered across the shelves.

He finds nothing that might not be cultivating various forms of e Coli, and Jesse  _cannot_ afford to get sick here in Ohio, lest he be stuck in a hospital ward with a patient who’s never heard of Patti LuPone, so he just sits back down, running through some scales. His voice sounds oddly tinny in the small kitchen.

“Cooper, I thought you said you weren’t buying such a flashy car until you paid off your student loans,” comes a voice from the hallway, and there’s the unmistakable thud of someone dropping their shoes to the ground, socks scuffing on the carpet. Jesse swallows; this is  _it._ He’s pretty sure that there are ways to get Rachel back should his plan to have Blaine talk up his virtues fail, but it will all be for naught if his pride is wounded. He  _has_ to do this; he doesn’t understand it, but he  _needs_ Rachel Berry.

Rachel Berry is the only person he knows who can see straight through him; she’s the only person he’s never been able to get a handle on. Jesse’s convinced that’s proof that they’re a match made in the kind of heaven that comes with a Celine Dion soundtrack. She  _can’t_ know how much of himself he’s put on the line, coming back here again for the third time; not unless he can find some way to work it into a dramatic reveal when they’re accepting their Tony Awards together, stars in the same show.

“Seriously, you  _know_ Mom is going freak out and Dad is going to lecture you about fiscal responsibility, and –“ Blaine’s hands drop suddenly to his sides as he rounds the corner into the kitchen, messenger bag dangerously close to hitting the ground. “I should have known, Cooper would  _never_ buy a BMW. Probably be too worried I’d want to eat Mickey Ds in it, or something.”

It seems a strange kind of greeting, considering that they’ve never been properly introduced, only skirted around each other at McKinley’s prom, last year. Jesse had been quite surprised to discover that it was Blaine who had been singing during his altercation with the lump of lard, and he’s been meaning to thank him, actually. Not too many moments in Jesse’s life come with the backing soundtrack they deserve, unless he’s singing it himself.

“You’re not freaking out because there’s a stranger in your kitchen?” Jesse asks, raising an eyebrow. “Because if so, that one creative writing class I actually bothered to show up to in college was a waste of my time; apparently all plots are supposed to follow the same general structure.”

“Isn’t the general advice when dealing with a stranger not to freak out?” Blaine counters, pulling his phone out of his pocket, probably to text some kind of plea to Hummel. “Besides, I know who you are; I’m just more concerned by how you know me. I haven’t been a member of New Directions for long, and Vocal Adrenalin wrote the Warblers off as a legitimate threat because our acapella renditions apparently sounded more like frogs croaking.” He skips a beat, still texting furiously. “Given some of the other insults you’ve bandied around, I’m still not sure exactly how offended you wanted us to be by that.”

Jesse ignores him, that had been around the time of the incident he still can’t think about – he swears, now, that the sound of those eggs breaking had been the sound of Rachel’s heart, and shit, he needs to distract himself, there’s a point where metaphors can ruin a story, but it’s not just that; he’d ruined  _everything_ that day, and he’s still trying to claw a lot of his respect for himself back – his insults had been way below standard. It wasn’t like Vocal Adrenalin had  _really_ needed to instil too much fear in a bunch of prep school kids trying their hand at the Pussycat Dolls when that, in itself, was a recipe for disaster.

He stands up, wandering back in the direction of the cupboards, as though he can ease some of the tension by flexing his muscles. Jesse needs caffeine, and he checks the Anderson’s kettle for water, flicking the switch. It starts to bubble and hiss almost automatically, blocking out most of Blaine’s resigned sigh.

“You were Rachel’s co-star in the McKinley production of  _West Side Story,”_ he says, finally, because anyone’s who’s been in such a laughable production should be automatically prepared to be recognised. Then again, Jesse’s learnt the hard way that people are often blind to the true nature of their own work, and taste  _is_ relevant – or so his college professors said, that one semester at UCLA when he’d taken offence to a scathing review by the paper of his performance in  _King Lear;_ how dare they suggest he couldn’t appropriately express madness when he feels like he’s been going around the bend ever since he found out  _exactly_ how many LA residents are dismissive of Broadway in favour of Hollywood? But he digresses; the McKinley High cast hadn’t been unequivocally awful, so much as they had been shockingly eclipsed by the talent of Rachel Berry.

Blaine was actually quite talented; Jesse had seen their Christmas special on TV, sitting in his bedroom at his parents’ house drinking wine and using his acting skills for an entirely different reason than he’d been gifted with them –  _I’m fine, Mom, just a little tired from the flight –_ and Jesse had to hand it to him: even  _he_ couldn’t muster up that much false enthusiasm for candy striped pants.

Blaine’s still frowning, though, and Jesse sighs. He’d be quite frustrated if he didn’t feel like there was a story behind the overtly polite demeanour. He finds untapped potential and hidden personas interesting; especially if there’s a chance he can help people discover their true selves. Jesse’s like a mage, in that respect – Rafiki to the Simba as played by poor, misguided souls.

“We live in the internet age, and you were in a musical that gained page seventeen coverage in the Lima Times,” Jesse says ignoring the pang in his heart that’s equal parts remembering watching that movie with Rachel and realising that getting so hung up over a memory isn’t generally a quality well-regarded among most mentors. She had sung  _Circle of Life_ so beautifully, and –

The kettle boils, and he pours the water into his cup

Jesse can’t even think about  _The Little Mermaid,_ and he’s busy trying to distract himself with thoughts of how Kurt Hummel might just break out in zits from all the stress of his boyfriend associating with  _Jesse St. Sucks_  - and honestly, alliteration is so 1999; it’s a good thing Hummel’s happy to accept a career singing other people’s hits – when a loud cough brings him back to reality. Blaine is saying something.

“I’ve had to set all of my online profiles to the highest security settings though, because of –“ Blaine shakes his head, eyes suddenly downcast, fingers clenching in the hem of his shirt. “And yet, you’re in my house… apparently helping yourself to my coffee.”

Jesse pokes his head out of the cupboard, where he’d been rooting around for sugar. “Don’t be silly,” he says, “I got your name from the program – you didn’t seriously think I was going to trawl through Youtube, did you? – and proceeded to call every Anderson in the area. Don’t worry, it was a fabulous chance to work on my expressions should I ever be called up for a part that requires me to do a voiceover.”

Blaine turns a ghastly shade of white. “You called my parents? You didn’t possibly think that that could be a bad idea. That they might think…”

Jesse’s gotten very good at judging people based on outward appearances and stereotypes, it’s a necessary skill in New York and LA if he wants to disassociate himself from the people just grasping at the coattails of his fame; he’s moving too fast in the world for them. But it’s been a long time since he’s witnessed such blatant discomfort with someone being  _gay._

He kind of gets the impression that Blaine doesn’t want to talk about it in any great detail.

“They were most accommodating once I happened to mention that I was an old friend of yours from private school. Suggested that I mention Dalton’s thinking about reinstating the polo team.” His laugh at Blaine’s confusion is less conspiratorial and more amused; he’s a harder person to mock than Jesse had suspected. “What? Hate to break it to you, but no self respecting private school kid goes to a performance like that unless it’s in a ritualistic display of support. I read Enid Blyton’s entire collection, so that I’d be prepared to convincingly portray life at a boarding school should J.K Rowling ever agree to cast actors who weren’t British.”

“Wouldn’t that time have been better used practicing your accent? Or indulging your apparent disregard for the law and faking your citizenship documents?”  _Burn baby burn,_ although Jesse likes to pretend that he’s above cliché life decisions, and doesn’t think  _disco inferno_ immediately afterwards. Of course not _._ “Trust me, Sebastian was  _not_ there to offer his support. At least not of any kind that didn’t involve highly dangerous sexual positions.”

Blaine’s mouth twitches a little at the corners, but he doesn’t blush. Jesse won’t admit it, but he’s actually kind of impressed. He also resolves, then and there, to stop Sebastian – and seriously, could his name  _get_ any more prep school pretentious? – from whatever nefarious plans he might have in store. He might not  _like_ Kurt Hummel, but he will probably need him on his side given his new role as Rachel’s supposed best friend, and he’s kind of impressed by his ability to snag a catch like Blaine Anderson.

Besides, meddling in other people’s affairs is like learning the alphabet, to him, given all the episodes of  _The Bold and Beautiful_ he’s watched in a necessary attempt to hone his penchant for melodrama. It also makes a good stress reliever.

“And yet, your parents seemed to feel as though our supposed friendship might be a good thing for you, in this time of need.” He glances at Blaine, noticing the small scar near his right eyelid and the slight redness around the area for the first time. “I know that watching Hudson bumble around on a daily basis is enough to ruin anyone’s eyesight, but playing it up like a victim in CSI scene might be exaggerating, just a little.” He leans forward, shoulders hunching and eyes narrowed to give off a conspiratorial vibe. “Sometimes, subtlety goes a long way.”

Jesse can almost  _see_ Blaine biting his tongue. He just takes another sip of his coffee, waiting for what comes next. “Clearly, my boyfriend should have been a little  _less_ subtle when he told me stories about you. I can’t believe you did that.”

“I’ll be sure to mention it to Kurt when I’m regaling him with tales of our rendezvous in your kitchen,” Jesse says, because it’s fun, sometimes, to wind people up. He likes the thrill of improvisation, of suddenly having to find a way to respond to how they act. “Besides, given your apparent eye injury and the fact that they’re not here, I think your parents have other things to worry about.”

“They’re just –“ Blaine hesitates, his forehead creasing in frustration. “Busy, that’s all.” He pushes his coffee cup to the centre of the table, resting his head in his hands. “I mean, I know that they’re not  _really_ that busy, but it’s not like any of us is ever going to pretend otherwise.”

He looks Jesse squarely in the eye. “Besides, they’re helping, in their own way. They’ve offered several times to press charges against Sebastian. And Kurt, and my friends, they’ve been great about this whole thing, even if Santana keeps on sending me pictures of the new Spanish teacher’s butt that I have to delete before I get accused of anything suspicious. Sugar even helped me surprise Kurt for Valentine’s Day.”

“There’s a new Spanish teacher?” Jesse asks curiously, because it hits a little too close to home, after four nationals trophies that his parents weren’t in attendance for, and he’s always looking for a chance to take a little dig at Will Schuester. If he’d had any idea of the talent his glee club was harbouring – well, until Shelby dismissed it, his original plan had been to convince Rachel to transfer to Vocal Adrenalin.

He adopts a dramatic flair to his voice. “Please don’t tell me that he slipped in the grease of his well-oiled ego. What a tragedy.”

“No, he’s apparently teaching history now,” Blaine sighs, “and here I was thinking I’d gotten away from him singing the curriculum to me by taking German. I mean, I know some of the other guys in the club look upon him as a bit of a fatherly figure, but…”

_It’s no substitute for having your own father present,_ Jesse finishes for him, and the two of them lapse into silence as Jesse tries to not think about his own parents. His sister Rebecca’s going to Harvard, come next fall, and just because she actually passed all of her own classes instead of getting some geek to take them for her, it doesn’t mean he needs to have his monthly allowance cut; insurance on a BMW is expensive and he’s becoming quite a target in LA after his stint as a judge at a local shopping mall’s talent show.

Jesse doesn’t believe in keeping it real, because reality’s only defined by how well you can act at it, but he does believe in telling the truth.

They lapse into silence for a while, Blaine picking idly at the corners of the tablecloth, Jesse trying to think of a subtle way to bring Rachel into a conversation that was supposed to be relatively straightforward. He hadn’t – Jesse’s not about to fall for the cliché move of bonding with someone over Daddy issues, but he’s suddenly feeling a little out of place.

Blaine suddenly stops fidgeting, eyes growing wide as he realises something. “ _West Side Story_ was  _months_ ago, why are you visiting now?”

Jesse just shrugs his shoulders at that one, hitting exactly the nonchalant mark he’d been looking for. The knowledge of  _why_ he’s here sits coiled tightly in his gut like a spring, ready to come unravelled at any second, and the fact that he’s sitting in a near stranger’s house trying so  _so_ hard not to think about it makes him wonder if his sanity’s not already fraying. He almost wishes he’d known about Rachel’s  _engagement_ before he’d taken on the role of Lear, because surely this is madness of a kind so thoroughly heartbreaking people wouldn’t even be able to make Sparta jokes about it.

He’d made a great Helen of Troy, during Carmel High’s production of  _the Iliad_ his junior year, even if they’d disagreed with his suggestions to make it a musical.

“I’m just revisiting a few old places of interest,” Jesse says, dipping his spoon into his coffee mug and stirring idly. “Trying to evoke a certain aura of nostalgia before I try out for American Idol again; I’ve already got ideas for my video diary when I make the final three. The general audience eats that shit up.”

“You want Rachel back,” Blaine replies, leaning back in his chair and fixing him with a scrutinising stare. “I’m not sure if your Facebook stalking revealed this, but she’s engaged.

“Apparently you’re still friends on Facebook with Lord Tubbington, so word got around that you’re back in Ohio, and she said that you might try and get close to us through friends of hers.”

Blaine’s attempts at staring get even more intense, like he’s had a lot of practice at this recently. “You’re just lucky she thinks nothing more of it than you trying to steal competition secrets again. She’s happy; don’t meddle in her love life Jesse, not this time.”

“Just because it’s Facebook official doesn’t mean it’s actually official, yet,” Jesse counters. He can  _feel_ how fake his smile is; he both loves and hates how Rachel can do this to him. “But how do you know I wasn’t just here to offer my congratulations? I’m highly in demand as a performer at weddings, I’ll have you know.”

Blaine makes a strange clicking noise with his tongue, says, “I can only imagine.” He suddenly sits up straighter, and Jesse’s suddenly thankful for this boy, if nothing else, the way he’s clearly about to jump to protect Rachel means he has her best interests at heart. They may just disagree on what those best interests are. “Look, it’s complicated, my friendship with Rachel. She’s moving to New York with Kurt, next year, and we sort of bonded, during  _West Side Story._ Maybe not conventionally, but…”

Blaine’s mouth suddenly goes soft at the edges, like he’s remembering something with a particular fondness.

“She says she’s happy, that this is all she wants,” Blaine says, finally. “As my friend, I think it’s my job to support in whatever she feels is the right decision, because I know that’s what she would do for me. If you’re here to give us all a rundown on why Finn’s like the BFG – Big Fat Giant, not friendly, although I don’t like to point out to Santana that he’s about the right size for a footballer – it’s already covered. She doesn’t need it.”

“You don’t really believe that this is the right thing for her, do you?” Jesse asks incredulously, because he  _knows_ Rachel, and she’s always going to be bigger than her dreams, even if, for the moment, said dreams involve a six foot plus hulking King Kong. Jesse doesn’t believe in a lot of things, but he’s always thought that, just maybe, love could be real, and he’s  _seen_  her Myspace videos dedicated to Finn, there’s no way she truly believes it.

There’s a reason she always saved the eleventh-hour Broadway showstoppers for him.

“I don’t know, Jesse,” Blaine says finally, wringing his hands, “I mean, I know that Finn can be kind of oblivious or whatever, and as much as Rachel’s one of my closest friends at McKinley, she’s kind of high maintenance. Don’t get me wrong, I love her for it, but on our last night of  _West Side Story,_ she insisted on getting Puck to smuggle in a bottle of champagne so that we could…”

“Go on.”

“You’re going to laugh, it was pathetic. But… getting in character was a little difficult for us until we thought about what we truly loved – who we truly loved – and we might have toasted to finding our soulmates. Under the caveat that we never  _ever_ mention it to Kurt or Finn.”

“You got drunk?” Jesse asks, almost begging for some kind of insipid story about Blaine seeing penguins tap dancing on his roof or something because he can’t think about the other thing, but he can’t not think about it either; his ears are ringing with it. It hurts worse than first seeing that she was engaged, because he’s never had a best friend, he’s pretty sure every school he’s ever been to was a breeding ground for mediocrity, worse than stupidity, but he’s seen enough romantic comedies to know that – when you tell your friends things like these, shit’s serious. “I don’t blame you, I’d need alcohol to sit through  _that_  - although, where’d you find the dancer, last time I was here Chang didn’t even talk  – but please at least tell me you got a drunken confession out of her that she doesn’t actually love him.”

“You never give up, do you?” Blaine replies, narrowing his eyes. “It was just that stuff they sell at the supermarket, not actual liquor.” Something funny flicks across his face at that, and Jesse makes a mental note to investigate. “The point is, I’ve got an amazing boyfriend, and I know who my friends are, exactly how much they’re willing to stick up for me. I’m so unbelievably lucky right now, if you don’t count how I can now recite  _Golden Girls_ episodes verbatim thanks to all the school I’ve missed, and… if I believe it, why shouldn’t she?”

He drops his voice to a conspiratorial whisper though, and adds, “Between you and me, I’m not sure I  _want_ her to believe it, but in the meantime, I’m just going to be there for her, no matter what happens.”

“I still think we need to do something,” Jesse replies, “I mean, if crazy was talent you guys would have beat out One Direction in X Factor, and yet, you have no plans. I’d be pulling my hair out if I wasn’t afraid I was going to end up looking uglier than Will Schuester.”

“I’m not sure that’s the nicest thing –“ but Blaine’s chest is heaving with laughter, and he leans back in his chair, clutching at his stomach. His shoulders roll with the effort of containing it, and Jesse’s laughing too, still not quite sure if that pain in his chest is because he hasn’t chuckled naturally since it went out of style with Homer Simpson and sideshow alley clowns, or because apparently Rachel’s claiming to be in love with someone else, but it’s easier to ignore it and grin at Blaine, instead. 

The sound of the garage door jerking open pulls them both from their reverie, and Jesse decides not to make things any more awkward for Blaine than they need to be. “I’ll just be going,” he says, slipping out of his chair and halfway down the staircase before Blaine can so much as turn to face him. “I’ll bring tea next time, it’s better for your vocal cords.”

Jesse can’t quite bring himself to shoot off any further insults, deciding to save them for when he’s at home making Hudson-esque voodoo dolls from his stuffed My Little Pony toys – he’d _specifically requested_ Care Bears – but he does whistle obnoxiously loudly as he slips past Mr. and Mrs. Anderson on his way out.

*

He spots Rachel for the first time at the Lima Bean, sitting with Hummel, Blaine, Mike Chang, Brittany, and the kid who didn’t know how to enunciate properly – or at all – during  _West Side Story._

They’re all laughing as Brittany shimmies her shoulders with an effortlessness he’d spent  _years_ trying to fake, and there’s a sudden tightness in his chest he can’t quite explain; he’d been  _much_ more talented than Lucky Charms, and yet they’d never made the effort to invite him places like this. Mostly though, he notices the way that Rachel is leaning back in her chair as she shares a knowing smile with Hummel, letting Brittany take the reins in what is clearly a meeting about choreography. She’s not even wearing her ring.

Jesse’s been in love with Rachel Berry long enough to know that, when things are at their most important for her, she suddenly stops showing off.

*

He shows up to Blaine’s again the following Tuesday, right about when he knows that Blaine will be home from glee club (he refuses to call them  _rehearsals_ ). Jesse generally finds social networking sites dreary and unimaginative unless people are ‘checking in’ to declare that they’re watching the greatest busker they’ve ever seen on the LA streets, but the New Directions’ constant use of it means they might as well already be wheeling the Trojan horse in, it’s that easy to find out what they’re up to. He just hopes that none of the videos Tina Cohen-Chang insists on uploading are their actual competition set lists.

Despite the fact that their dancing exists in that black hole between Finn Hudson and people who actually have both their left and right feet, he’s almost tempted to take on the Dalton Academy Warblers just for the thrill of revealing just how easy it could be to beat New Directions. Jesse’s more than sure they could manage it with less than the recommended daily limit of intravenous fluids.

Facebook stalking aside, he’s  _definitely_ not expecting to let himself into Blaine’s kitchen, only to find Santana Lopez leaning on the Anderson’s kitchen counter, apple in her palm and smile sunny, but calculating. The only thing that shocks him more is that, with the apple, she looks more Snow White’s evil stepmother and less Cruella de Vil.

“Did you get the ‘St’ in your last name because your mother was praying that you’d be taken away before she’d have to admit that she gave birth to you?” Santana asks, swinging down off the counter and stepping towards him, running a finger down his chest. Her body is pressed close against his as she lets her breath ghost over him, and he suddenly, desperately misses Rachel, the only girl who’d never chased him. The only girl who maybe, no matter how well hidden it was sometimes, believed she was worth the chase.

“You’ve been saving that one up,” Jesse says instead of dwelling upon it, shifting back away from her to lean against the fridge, “it’s like dairy products and Will Schuester, they all have expiration dates.”

“Okay, okay, so I’m still mad that you came back promising us eternal glory and then ducked out again the minute the shit hit the fan,” Santana replies, taking an exaggerated bite from the apple. “You could have soaked up our blood, sweat and tears with that uncontrollable mop of yours, but instead you left us all to suffer through yet another nauseating round of Finchel getting their mack on.”

“It’s no wonder you can’t win a show choir championship if you’re wasting all your time coming up with silly nicknames,” Jesse says, still trying to ignore the weight of his feelings, even as his stomach clenches in knots and he’s forced to rest more of his weight against the fridge to hold himself. It’s a ridiculous portmanteau, and he can tell Santana agrees, given the way her nose scrunches up, but still – they’re like jeggings, one of those unfathomable cultural trends that’s somehow worked its way into popular vernacular. It’s like most of the glee club has ever forgotten that he was there, supporting her dreams even when Finn was draping himself upon some cheerleader or another, and it’s that, more than anything, which makes him weep. It’s like he’s been erased from existence until they need someone to inspire their ‘angry folk music from the early nineteenth century’ week. “Right now, Vocal Adrenalin will be in full lockdown. They’ve probably already reached the stage where the Humane Society comes to check for animal cruelty.”

“None of which explains why you’re here, in Blaine’s kitchen,” Santana replies, eyes narrowed. She tosses the remaining core of the apple into the Andersons’ garbage can with a single elegant toss. “Keeping an eye on the competition.”

Something about the word ‘eye’ jogs his memory – of _course_ , Blaine got his cornea scratched by the chipmunk - and Jesse gapes at her before moving to sit at the table, resting his chin in his hands. She can’t think – he might need the money now that he’s officially unable to qualify for college aid  _and_ continuously rejected by people who’d rather donate to the Salvation Army whilst busking in Times Square, but there’s no well he’d actually sell himself out by agreeing to work for the Warblers. About the only thing Jesse knows about a capella is how to beat it to the curb.

 “We’re international spies; this is our home base,” Jesse says, shrugging. “Clearly you’re the first one smart enough to foil our regime.”

“Don’t give me that bullshit,” Santana replies. “I know how to be an asshole, so I can respect that, or whatever. But Blaine wasn’t even in New Directions during your time as Simon Cowell’s lovechild, so don’t mess with him.” Her gaze is menacing; Jesse feels like it’s spearing straight through him, pinning him to the fridge, and he braces himself against the weight of it by glaring back.

“Look,” she says, “let’s cut to the chase. Blaine texted me the moment he found you in his kitchen last week, I know you want Rachel back, and as much as I’d love to just box her up and Fed Ex her to you with no return address and a note warning that she bites, we’re finally getting somewhere in New Directions. We’re going to win Nationals this year, and you don’t get to come in and piss all over that. For some of us, this is our last chance –“

“Where did you apply to college, Santana?” is all Jesse asks in response, moving to sit down at the table. There’s a vase of roses on the table, one of them missing a few of its petals – it’s got to be a Valentine’s gift, and Jesse scoffs, because there’s no way Blaine isn’t currently pressing the missing petals in a book.

“Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, Miami.” Santana ticks the cities off on her fingers as she goes, and it’s what Jesse expected – they’re all as far away from Ohio as possible. He gets it, if he hadn’t spent hours being trained to work under bright spotlights he’d have been blinded by the city, his first Nationals with Vocal Adrenalin; Ohio’s always been both too small and too large for him. “I thought about moving to New York, or whatever, but that’s Kurt and Rachel’s thing. Besides, Rachel’s My Little Pony collection alone will increase the city’s queer contingent by two hundred percent; I’d rather move somewhere sunny.”

Jesse’s suddenly having second thoughts about his Finn Hudson voodoo doll collection. Except –

He’s pretty sure Santana and Brittany both tried to come on to him, his first week at McKinley, and while he’d seen it as little more than a way of practicing for when he’s hounded by fans only after him for his celebrity – he’d even offered Santana his autograph, although he’s pretty sure he remembers seeing it taped to the bathroom wall under a crudely drawn pornographic picture, the following week – it doesn’t make any sense now. Not if –

He wonders, suddenly, if that’s why she’s hanging around in Blaine Anderson’s kitchen. Jesse had always admired the support system at McKinley, and had only wished he’d been able to adapt it work with Vocal Adrenalin’s ruthlessness – a show choir supporting each other in crushing the opposition would have been a sight to behold; they might have even named a building at Carmel after him. But now, it makes something settle in his stomach until his entire body feels sodden with the weight of it, like he’s suddenly drowning in all the dreams that Will Schuester had arrogantly claimed his choir could help Jesse realise.

He suddenly misses Rachel more than ever, the smell of her hair, the way her nose crinkled when she laughed, the way that, for a few months, she’d been the only person who had ever believed in his dreams more than he had. 

“You’re friends with Rachel,” he says, finally. “I mean, I can’t say I blame you for wanting to absorb even a little of her musical talent by osmosis, but I guess that weird New Directions thing that Will Schuester was always preaching is actually a reality.”

Jesse flicks at a crumb on the table. “You’re talented Santana, if a little misguided in your choice of artists, I think Ani diFranco’s more your thing. But you’re not Rachel Berry, and she’s never going to get anywhere if you make her waste all her time playing like Girl Scouts singing campfire songs instead of practicing.”

Santana’s eyes narrow. “So what if I’m friends with Rachel? She’s not so bad once you get past the hideous socks and the fact that she thinks she’s better than she actually is. Not unless…” and her eyes narrow even further, until Jesse’s convinced she might actually be more cat than human, she’s certainly got the claws for it, “you’re jealous.”

He’s totally  _not._ Except that he kind of also is.

“Who’s jealous?” Jesse hears from behind, and he turns around to see Blaine, walking into the kitchen and tossing his messenger bag onto a side table as he goes. Jesse makes a mental note to take James Bond off his list of potential roles, should he ever be forced to lower his standards so low as to be forced to go into acting on camera. It’s not the most emotionally deep of roles, anyway. “Please don’t tell me you told Finn he’d fill out a bra better than you did, because it was so icy at the last Hudmel Friday night dinner that Burt couldn’t have given you snow tires good enough to drive over it.”

Santana shrugs, pulling a chair out from under the table and flopping into it. Blaine doesn’t say anything, even when she almost pulls the tablecloth from underneath the vase of roses, a little water sloshing over the sides, just rolls his eyes, and she stands back up, heading into the kitchen to grab a cloth.

Jesse’s sort of confused as to why Blaine would want to attend dinner at the  _Hudmels_ – and seriously, at least some of their other ridiculous portmanteaus had some rhythm to them – when it’s supposed to be family only, but he shrugs. Blaine and Santana seem to make a formidable, if unconventional team; he can work with this, and besides, he suspects that pissing one of them off might raise the hackles of the other, even if they’ll never admit it. The way they’re glancing at each other like he can’t see them rolling their eyes tells him everything he needs to know, and he’s only been observing them together for about fifteen seconds.

He’s put a lot of work into maintaining his skin over the years, not _just_  so that Proactiv will ignore him when he becomes famous for lack of an adolescent acne sob story (Jesse refuses to stoop that low), and he’s not about risk Santana mauling it in order to find to test this particular theory.

 “What?” she says, when she comes back into the kitchen, her bitch face so obviously a façade that he wonders if that’s not the impression she wants to give; there’s a certain softness in her eyes when she glances at Blaine. “Snow White’s seventh dwarf brings soup and Broadway’s greatest hits, I bring Snickerdoodles and unadulterated sex appeal. Didn’t even have to open a can and pretend like I cooked that shit.”

Jesse’s heart flips a little at the mention of Rachel. She’s been here, in this very house, and he’s suddenly convinced that he can smell her perfume. The more he thinks about it, the headier and more whimsical he feels, until Blaine and Santana are staring at him, concerned. He blinks up at them,  _Rachel_ suddenly thrumming in his veins like the notes of a Broadway song.

“That was really good soup,” Blaine replies, “once I got past the fact that I didn’t recognise any of the ingredients except carrots. It was really thoughtful of her.”

Santana just rolls her eyes, says, “it’s me, Anderson,” with a loud scoff, reaching over to punch him in the arm. Blaine recoils, ever so slightly, at the swinging motion of Santana’s arm, before hiding it quickly by grabbing her wrist and pinning it to the table. Jesse’s eyes continually dart between them, and he hums thoughtfully – the three of them could make a formidable team; they’re all good at hiding their pain.

_What pain?_ his mind helpfully supplies, and he supposes he should mention in his autobiography that you know it’s true love when you feel like Rachel Berry’s the central thread of your existence, the only thing that might possibly make you sane. Because, he loves her dearly, but he also remembers her at sixteen with a too-bright smile and multiple theories about the lucky properties of sweaters.

Blaine and Santana must mistake the hum for a sigh, because they both stop what’s descended into some kind of ridiculous tickling war to face him, eyebrows raised. He wouldn’t put it past them to be telepathically communicating ways to have him up for ritual slaughter.

“I still haven’t figured out why you’ve let yourself into my house for the second week in a row, but I’ll be kind of offended if you find us so boring that we’re giving you a headache,” Blaine jokes, resting his chin on his palm, elbow bent at a precarious level to avoid the damp patch where Santana had split water. “Come to think of it, why  _are_ you here again?”

Jesse swallows thick and fast, wondering how to answer that. This is  _it,_ really, in the way that every moment in his life is an  _it,_ every moment is an opportunity to perform, and what he says here – well, reality TV judging (even if it was just from his armchair) taught him that every word counts, whether you want to build someone up or plunge an arrow through their heart.

He’s not sure which one he’d rather with Blaine and Santana; the way they’re managing to present a united front from opposite sides of the table unnerves him. After having met Rachel’s dads, and then Kurt Hummel, he’s fairly sure that most queer people have some kind of ability to be terrifying whilst doing nothing but sit there genetically built into them. (Although, in Hummel’s case, it may have just been the sharp badges and blinding glitter than characterised his outfits most days of the week).

Jesse’s also fairly sure they have inbuilt bullshit detectors, although that may just be a side effect of being offered brownies by Noah Puckerman. (He’d  _known_ that breaking the strict diet outlined by Vocal Adrenalin was a bad idea).

So  _of course,_ what he says is, “I want to help you guys win Nationals this year,” because he does, honestly – Rachel deserves it – and it’s only through the sheer convincing power of his smile that he pulls it off.  _So optimistic it could cure cancer,_ he just managed  _so charming it could sweep a princess of her feet,_ and he tries not to think about Rachel’s Disney pyjamas and her penchant for pink. He’s suddenly so, so sure that if he could give them a Nationals victory for real, this year, Rachel might just see that he’s never been anything but committed to her dreams.“You two would pull off a high-powered duet,  _and_ I wouldn’t have to worry about you ruining it in the end.”

Jesse’s can feel his facial muscles tensing just thinking about it.

Blaine just stares at him, and  _wow,_ he really underestimated this kid. “You should know by now that it’s Nationals, the duet will go to Finn and Rachel. There’s so many seniors who’ve worked so hard, Kurt of course, but also Mercedes, and Quinn, and Puck, and -”

“While you’re busy stating the obvious,” Santana says, shaking her head at him, “I’m planning a duet with Brittany. Jesse will take that, because it means that there’s no chance of Grawp getting into the hobbit cave,  _and_ it means I don’t have to flash my boobs at him. I want to meet Kim Kardashian, I don’t want to  _be_ her.”

Jesse’s still trying hard not to gape at how  _ballsy_ Santana’s gotten since becoming a lesbian, when she adds, “don’t act all high and mighty, Blaine. Curiousity never  _really_ killed the cat, Lord Tubbington’s a perfect example of that.”

“Telling me all about your boobs is not going to make me so desperate to talk about dicks that I’ll reveal all the intimate details I know you’re fishing for, Santana.” The smile on Blaine’s face is a little amused, though, his mouth quirking upwards at the corners, and Jesse knows before he does that Blaine’s going to tell her, eventually – he  _likes_ having someone to discuss these things with. It’s obvious this is a long running inside joke between them, like that thing he had going with -

Jesse’s stomach clenches painfully in knots; clearly Blaine needs to offer him something to eat.

Santana shrugs again, planting her feet on the table. “It’s a big pond, I’ve only fished a small area.”

“Can we  _please_ stop this metaphor before somebody gets hurt?” Blaine says, and personally, Jesse’s glad. Even if he wasn’t absolutely, completely, one-hundred percent dedicated to winning Rachel back and not thinking about anyone else, he’s fairly sure there’s a point, somewhere, where he just shouldn’t think about any members of the New Directions like that. “One day, Santana – you have my permission to get me drunk for my buck’s party, or something.”

“You do not want to know where my deer metaphors could end up,” Santana says, wagging a finger at Blaine, and really,  _why_ is he here, again? Oh. Right. “I’m more interested in getting Birds Nest here drunk anyway, because that shit would be hilarious.”

It’s all Jesse can do not to splutter.

“Just make sure you find a way to get the New Directions to welcome me back, okay. And if you can maybe find a way for Finn to tragically fall from a twenty storey building before I get there, that would be just peachy,” Jesse says, laughing as they both look suddenly up, heads snapping to face him. He stands up, getting ready to leave. “I’m late for my four-thirty Skype hook up with Paula Adbul, maybe you’ve heard of her? She’s -”

He’s almost proud of the way they don’t even pretend like he’s not in earshot before they start arguing over the merits of dealing with someone who unironically uses the word  _peachy._ Proud, but a little something like disappointed too; for all they argue about him, they barely seem to notice that he’s actually  _gone._   

*

The second time he sees Rachel, it’s in a quiet park just down the street from Carmel; retracing his long-faded footsteps through the long grass is a nod to the long hallowed tradition of flashbacks that Jesse’s long come to admire when used right; there’s something about looking back that sends the future dramatic tension soaring. It just needs the right soundtrack.

More than that, it’s a reminder that he escaped, and the knowledge of it grounds him and allows him to fly at the same time; he’s better than this, but he wouldn’t be this person without Lima – without  _her._ He’s just thinking that Rachel might understand that better than anyway else, when he hears “Jesse”, and  turns to see her, giving him that smile he thinks might be just for him, even as her eyes narrow slightly.

“What are you doing back in Lima?” she asks, and clearly Anderson and Lopez haven’t managed to get New Directions back on board the Jesse St James Hater Train just yet, even if he’s forced to ignore the fact that, for whatever reason, they haven’t brought him up at all. He’ll have to charm the registrar with his flawless rendition  _of something,_ see if he can’t get the hobbit’s cell phone number out of the system. It’s not like he’s ever going to turn down an opportunity to do a little spontaneous dancing in front of the impressionable; he suspects he might even be able to gain an attentive audience.

“Just doing a little freelancing,” he replies, smiling back; it’s the least practiced, and maybe the only natural of all his smiles, but for how much he can feel the weight and importance of it, it ought to be one of his most rehearsed. “I hear you were a resounding success in  _West Side Story,_ the best Maria since Carol Lawrence sung their first ever note.”

Rachel doesn’t flush now, but he can still see the glimmer of pride in her eyes, as she says, “Yes, well. Being the lead in a musical as esteemed as  _West Side Story_ was great practice for when I’m like a hurricane, in New York. Artie was right – I’m too at home on Broadway to simply take the world by storm. I’m going to be bigger than that.”

He can see it then, in the way she stands in front of him, hair curling slightly in the breeze and hands tucked into the pockets of her cardigan as she glances up at him. He’s almost glad her hands are tucked away like that; he can’t bear to check for signs of the ring. She doesn’t look at him with those same puppy dogs eyes though, like she needs him to achieve her dreams, and no matter what he thinks of her sham of an impending marriage, there’s a sudden feeling of pride that tugs at him, then, much like how music is the tendon that holds his bones together, allowing him to snap back into place.

Rachel Berry doesn’t need his validation anymore, has taken the seed of hope and dreams that he helped her to plant and let her talent flourish into a flower that won’t be dampened by the heaviest of rains and, honestly –

There’s so much else he wants to say, so many emotions like song lyrics in his veins, absorbed so deep into him that he can’t handle the knowledge of it sometimes, to the point where he wonders if his autobiography might not resemble  _War and Peace._ But he also knows, better than anyone, the importance of timing, of establishing the right rhythm, and he leaves the  _I miss you_ and the  _I love you_ aside, saving them for a full-blown record of his intentions rather than just a demo. For all Rachel values the deeply emotional as much as the technically perfect, she deserves only the most polished performance he can give.

Instead, he just says, “I’ll make sure I bring an umbrella to your first performance.”

He doesn’t have to look back to know that she’s still smiling as he walks away. 

 

“You can’t screw him over,” is the first thing Jesse hears as he steps out of the Sondheim aisle at the music store on Saturday afternoon, still idly wondering how a town as uncultured as Lima has gained access to such a large and frankly impressive collection of music. And yet, he’s still rueing the fact that they’re missing a song that fully describes the anchor-like tug of his heartstrings when he glances over at the piano where he’d first serenaded Rachel, today dusty and worn in a piece of symbolism Jesse quite admires; loving Rachel makes him feel both too young and too old for his body. “I mean, you can mock Finn’s dancing as much as you like, but not – no one else in New Directions deserves that.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Santana, I wouldn’t go within ten feet of Hudson even if I was recruiting for a production of Frankenstein,” Jesse says snidely, without even turning around. They  _must_  have the perfect David Bowie song to express his intense emotion around here somewhere. “Contrary to popular belief, some of us manage to gain fame without being forced to step on the little ones in our road, although that can sometimes be a fun advantage. Whilst you negotiate my triumphant return to the halls of William McKinley, I’ve been busy checking out your competition. I’m disgusted that you let a certain Thaddeus go unnoticed, his insurmountable fury at Anderson’s departure from the Warblers could be dangerous for you. I used to be marginally impressed by your ability to sabotage, Lopez. It’s part of the reason I came to you in the first place.”

“You didn’t come to me, you came to Blaine,” Santana snaps back, leaning on the shelf and glaring at him. This time, it’s easier to pretend that the sudden drop of his stomach is just a reaction to well-practiced dramatic tension on Santana’s part. “And you only did that because he’s new and you wrote him off as a walkover. He’s not, okay. I’m not saying that we’re like bffs for life or whatever, but he’s a good person, okay. And if you mess with him, Auntie Snix is not afraid to get all up in your grill.”

Jesse doesn’t say anything – it was at least partially true, although he was more than happy to align himself with someone willing to sing Pink in public anyway. And now, he’s not sure what to  _call_ Blaine, exactly, but he’s certainly not going to throw him under a bus, as overused as the cliché is.

I should be disgusted, but -” and she leans in close, letting her breath trail along the collar of his shirt “- I’m mostly just disappointed in the fact that you haven’t changed a bit.”

And it’s that, after everything, that cuts him to the bone – Los Angeles was supposed to be his big break, his chance to rise above everything that Ohio couldn’t offer him, like a phoenix rising from the ashes of small-mindedness and broken dreams. Jesse himself was supposed be both the blazing trail and hero that arose from it, triumphant, but when that hadn’t worked, he’d still known enough to limp back home to Ohio long enough to be heartbroken by Rachel Berry all over again, and then head for New York, and a bigger dream.

He should have known that heading 3000 miles in the wrong direction from Broadway was an inaccurate spin of his own professional compass; it was never going to work out. But still, this is what performer narratives are made of, and for Santana to –

“Let me buy you coffee,” he says to her, almost sickly sweet, because the thing about performing is that you can never let your guard down, and Jesse doesn’t need Santana to see how off-balance he suddenly is. It’s worse than the year he’d tried to take Regionals with a dance partner who could barely stand in high heels. “We can talk strategy, make sure we’re on the same page.”

“The only page I’d like you to be on is a ‘most wanted’ poster,” Santana snaps back, but she jerks her head in the direction of the door, and he grins at her, wide and just a little this side of lecherous – it’s nice to have an opponent actually somewhat worth his while, for a change. Cutting down people in New York and LA became slightly pathetic about the time that he realised they were overly sensitive about the most minute change in the weather. Santana, at least, is better than that.

He regrets the offer of coffee a little when she orders what is possibly the most complicated drink known to man, but he manages to steer her to a table without letting his facial muscles give over to their intended grimace, dunking his biscotti in his latte as he thinks. Tea is probably better for his vocal cords, but he’s been so  _tired_ lately, and he doubts it’s just the late night re-runs of Eurovision. There’s something satisfying about tearing a Finnish rock band to shreds, but even that, lately, hasn’t been able to help him shake the deep-seated feeling that he’s missing something.

“So, Santana,” he says, raising an eyebrow, “I hear that you, Brittany and Jones – the Troubletones, was it? – get to sing a song at Regionals. Wow, you really must be attracted to mediocrity if that’s all it took for you to rejoin Schuester’s group of merry men and misfits.”

“I rejoined because they’re my friends, okay,” Santana snaps in response, fingers clenching around her coffee mug. “I mean, it used to be totally lame to admit that, or whatever, but it’s not like my social standing matters all that much, anymore.” She sighs, drawn-out and wistful, glancing around the room. “It’s my senior year, okay. We don’t need to go all Breakfast Club up in this joint, but –“

“I never took you for the John Hughes type,” Jesse says, cutting her off, because he’s long been a believer in Vocal Adrenalin’s musical homogeny program, right through to putting everyone on the same caffeine only diet, even that weird kid with the nervous tick who danced like he was in a “Flashdance” remake. Clearly it’s the emotional baggage that ruined New Directions’ last shot at Nationals – he feels suddenly, violently ill thinking about; if there’s one thing Jesse knows, it’s technique, and he  _really_ doubts that Hudson had any of it – but he can’t help but remember them all hugging, afterwards, and wonder what life would have been like, had there been a year where Vocal Adrenalin didn’t win.

The thought is preposterous; the entire routine was built around him.

“Blaine made me watch them,” Santana admits, a smile playing at the corner of her lips. “He has that many bowties; I don’t know how he automatically picked up that the ones Brittany and I wore when we sang “Circus” for Express Your Inner Child Week” were his.”

“I refuse to believe that’s actually a true story for the sake of my sanity,” Jesse replies, tapping at the edge of the table. The truth is, he probably lost his sanity about the time he started staying up until three in the morning watching videos of Rachel belting out “Don’t Rain on My Parade”; she was so talented even  _before_ he knew her. Santana doesn’t need to know that, though, and he schools his face into something resembling disinterest. There’s a reason he turned down NYADA; where better to practice his show faces than LA.

“Whatever.” Santana clicks her tongue as she stares him down. “My gaydar is  _amazing,_ and it’s allowed Auntie Tana to hone several other instincts, including when someone is talking complete and utter  _bullshit.”_ He has the sudden feeling that this is a cat and mouse game, and he can’t quite tell who’s the predator and who’s the prey. He also can’t believe he just used such a ridiculous metaphor; years of trying to compose the perfect ode to Rachel’s eyes should have made him better than that – although,  _brown_ doesn’t rhyme with a lot of things, although there was  _you’re my princess, here’s your crown_ until he decided that he couldn’t pull off the boy band act, especially given how much he hated everyone that could have possibly been a viable candidate for membership.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jesse replies coolly, instead of dwelling on that. One of the hardest things about being an actor – it’s as much about what you don’t say as what you do. “

“You don’t care if New Directions wins Nationals or not.” Santana pushes a piece of paper across the table, fingers curled as she refuses to let go, even as he grabs at it. How did Jesse’s life become this, again? Santana Lopez is talented, sure, but it’s not like she’s going to win any awards whilst she keeps focusing on the wrong feelings. “You’re not getting this, but –“ and she flips the paper over,  _Wade Adams_ scrawled across it in untidy handwriting that has got to be Puck’s. He’d never paid too much attention to Puck beyond wondering if Pixar was using his mohawk as a breeding ground for their latest flock of animated squirrels, how could Rachel have  _ever_ have kissed that? But Jesse watched enough crime shows in his attempts to learn how to play the perfect dead person, and he knows that the proof is in the tiniest details, and no one else would have taken a permanent marker on a reconnaissance mission.

(He’s been back at Carmel once since he’s returned to Ohio, to give a presentation to the freshman about the importance of the arts, and some of their graffiti had been creative, to say the least).

“They only asked to me to coach this year,” Jesse says, and if he looks a little smug,  _well._ “I turned the job down, as fabulous as I’m sure Wade is, there’s only so much I can do in a school who removed the IV drips from the roof of the French classroom. You said it yourself, by applying to all those colleges out of state – sometimes change is a good thing. You know better than anyone that New Directions is  _always_ changing – although for better or worse, I can’t always tell.”

“Yeah, and you’re not the one being persecuted for being who you are around here,” Santana snaps back, standing up so suddenly that her chair falls behind her, hitting the ground with a clatter that sends heads spinning in their direction. Usually Jesse’s all for the spotlight, but there’s only so much he can do with a crowd like this. Santana’s loud, and her Cheerios outfit makes her so blindingly obvious; they’re spoiling for a fight. She doesn’t look angry though, just resigned, and he’s reminded of how Ohio takes the best and worst things about everyone, squeezing tight until anyone with talent, with ambition, is wrung out like a dirty dishrag. “I got called a carpet muncher in the hallway, the other day, and I’m not even allowed to stand up for myself about it, because that might just be against school policy. I put up with their shit because I’m better than them, and I’m getting out of Ohio as soon as I can, even if I have to sell Hudson to the Japanese to do it. But I’m not putting up with yours.”

If he’d been Jesse St James, born in New York, he could have been anyone. As it is, he’d been slushied thirteen times his senior year for being as close to himself as he possibly could, spying missions excluded, and the only time it had made him feel anything other than bitter about his own potential is when Rachel had kissed the slushy from his cheek.

Santana throws her arms up in the air and starts to move away from the table, customers still staring. He thinks one of them may have even dropped their latte, given by the shrieking in the far corner, but he ignores it in favour of scrambling out of his own chair and following her. He knows better than to get blindsided by obvious distractions, like that one time a girl in the front row at Regionals had shouted out “marry me”, and he’d been so horrified by the idea of even knowing anyone who had that much of an inability to ration their glitter.

They’re almost at the door of the Lima Bean, Santana decidedly not looking at him, when Jesse realises: for all the speeches he’s ever written in his mind, he has no idea what to say. At the last minute, he grabs at her wrist, and smiles. It’s strange, doing so in a way that doesn’t make him feel like his cheeks are going to split from the sheer size and intensity of it, but he thinks she appreciates it more, given that she stops and plants her feet, turning to look at him.

“You came here to defend, Blaine,” is all he says, after a long pause. “And, given my extensive training in how to read the facial expressions and emotions of others, I can safely predict that he’d say the same about you. Now, don’t let me get in the way of a pity party, you’ll never do it as well as Barbra Streisand in any of her given hits.”

He lets go of her then, years of dancing with some of Ohio’s most left-footed simpletons allowing him to step backwards just before Santana can stamp down on his foot, and as she marches out, skirt swishing about, he adds, “I didn’t learn to judge reality TV for nothing. Maybe not New York, but you’ve got enough talent to turn heads in any other city you choose.”

Altruism isn’t really a thing he’s known for, but every good autobiography needs a story about the touching power of giving to others, and he may as well start somewhere. Besides, he owes her, a little – he needed that reminder about why it wasn’t a good idea to even  _think_ about serenading Rachel with a little Britney Spears.

*

The third time he sees Rachel, she’s holding hands with Hudson as they stand in line for sushi at the mall, Rachel smiling even as she listens to him loudly wondering about what they do to get the rice so sticky. Despite everything he told himself about it not really mattering, she’s smiling almost as bright as he’s ever seen her outside of the stage, and she’s wearing her ring again.

Jesse understands, suddenly, the literary appeal of facades, in that there’s a certain amount of alliteration with  _fall,_ and he feels suddenly, violently ill. The better the actor, the more the act becomes reality and he doesn’t know what do with this bright sunshine like blurring of his vision until suddenly, there are two sets of hands propping him up.

Weird. Fainting is something altogether new to him; he made it through two national show choir championships on a diet solely consisting of Saltines and Red Bull and never felt a thing.

Jesse turns around, only to notice Blaine and Santana glancing at him, the former looking much more sympathetic. He appreciates the gesture more than he knows how to express without bursting into a flawless rendition of a Led Zeppelin song, even if he’ll never admit it, can’t quite admit it to himself beyond the fact that he’ll take any chance to perform, but someone needs to teach Blaine to tone his faces down a notch or two. Jesse puts it on his list of things to accomplish sometime between finding the perfect song for the triumphant moment when he won his first Nationals in the film biography in his life and working out why UCLA never got around to finding someone to take his biology exam.

He’s about to ask what they’re doing there, right when this happens, but before he can, Santana just says, “don’t mention it”, before stalking off.  Jesse doesn’t dare to overdramatise it in his head, but he’s fairly sure she’s smiling slightly as leaves.

Blaine stays just a moment longer, giving Jesse a soft, sympathetic smile that burns to his core, and a “don’t worry, they’ll never make it to New York, together. I love Finn like a brother, these days, but sushi’s about as cultured as he gets, and that’s only because he can act like a ninja with his chopsticks.”

“Blaine -”

Blaine turns on his heel, one eyebrow raised in a way that’s so common Jesse suspects that he doesn’t find anything unusual about this, so he just chokes down all the things he’s not quite sure how to say –  _thank you_ and  _do you really think she could love me again?_ – and just says, “nothing”.

By the time he turns around, Rachel’s gone.

*

Jesse understands how he got to a particular point where accompanying Blaine Anderson to the tenpin bowling alley on a Friday night seemed like a foregone conclusion. What he doesn’t quite understand is how he got to be okay with that, but he thinks it might have something to do with an overwhelming need to remind himself of why he’s better than  _Clusterfuck,_ Ohio, the fact that Blaine’s actually a surprisingly fun and engaging person, and a day spent watching  _How I Met Your Mother_ and wondering what story he might tell his and Rachel’s future children. The latter, he doesn’t quite admit to, but Jesse’s long admired Neil Patrick Harris’ penchant for making the ridiculous seem, well. Less ridiculous.

With that particular combination of genes, any children of theirs are destined to be Broadway stars, so they’ll need a witty anecdote about their family history for when they’re accepting their first Tony.

“So I see New Directions put together a positively scintillating performance of ‘Walk Like an Egyptian’ this week,” Jesse says, not even bothering to pretend like he’s not laughing. It would be a waste of his acting skills given that, deep down, he’s pretty sure Blaine secretly agrees with him. He’s mostly just surprised that it took this long for Mr. Schuester to realise that, hey, he had two Asian kids in his choir, maybe multiculturalism would be a cool theme. Then again, Jesse had spent a semester in his Spanish class, and it’s funny, the stories he’s picked up for anecdotes when he gets offered a spot on shows like Ellen. He’s just so suddenly devastated that Oprah’s been cancelled, he can just imagine how she’d eat that stuff up. “It’s easy to see why your parents were so happy for you to transfer from that prestigious, well-regarded prep school of yours, given how much they must be saving not getting your blazers dry-cleaned.”

There’s something there, in Blaine’s eyes, when he says it, and he remembers again, suddenly the reaction Blaine had elicited when he’d found out about Jesse talking to his parents. He can’t quite pinpoint what it is, and it frustrates him; he’s spent so long learning how to read other people’s facial expressions in the hope that he’ll always be able to catch interviewers off guard, steer them around to topics that best highlight his ingénue. Jesse suddenly suspects that Blaine would be able to quite accurately name the feelings that have left him feeling unsettled, lately, the way his bones feel too heavy for his body late at night, the hollowness in his stomach.

The trouble is, Jesse can’t quite name them himself.

“Rachel tried to talk me out of transferring from Dalton, you know,” is what Blaine says, though, raising an eyebrow at Jesse, and he’s the one suddenly thrown off-guard, smile slipping a little at the corners because he misses that, with Rachel – even if her advice wasn’t always entirely helpful, it was just nice, having someone so self-assured, so willing to brave Jesse that she would give it. He misses Rachel so intensely that his heart feels like a rabbit warren sometimes, poked through with dozens of holes like all the love he has for her has come flooded out into his bloodstream, leaving him saturated with the knowledge of it. The trouble is, he thinks, like the rabbit warren, it’s so easy to get lost in the melodrama of it all;  _go big or go home_ is something that’s never been applied to anyone better than it can be to him and Rachel Berry. “We don’t really talk about it, the only other person who knows is Kurt.”

Jesse doesn’t even stop to contemplate what that actually means; he suspects that Blaine might actually trust him.

They both pick out their bowling balls, shrugging a little as they enter their names and realise  _exactly_ how pathetic they are, trying to bowl on a Friday night with only two people. There’s a jukebox in the corner though, maybe they can liven up their night with a few 70s classics. He suspects that Blaine would be down with that, given the bowties. Blaine doesn’t laugh, though, just says, “I was really surprised when she came to me and said that Kurt had mentioned I was considering it. I mean, what with Dalton being up against McKinley and all, I wasn’t sure she’d want me and Kurt dating when it could compromise both teams, but –“

“If I got mentioned in this story,  _please_ tell me she romanticised the fact that I transferred schools to be with her,” Jesse says, shocking even himself when he does something he’s never done before: holds his fist out for Blaine to bump. Blaine does so, eyeing him warily. “What? As if I didn’t already feel a kindred spirit in you with your love for Bryan Ferry, our lives are paralleling quite nicely at this point.”

He doesn’t know what to think of that, realising suddenly the extent to which their stories parallel.

Jesse picks up his ball, stepping up to the foul line and preparing to bowl. He studies the lane intently for a moment, trying to work out the best angles to get a strike, when he hears Blaine behind him, “It’s okay to admit that you think we’re friends, you know. I even convinced my mom to switch our coffee brand because I know you don’t really like Nescafe.”

He lurches forward, tripping over the foul line and sending his ball spiralling down the gutter.

The prepubescent twerps in the next lane over laugh, and Jesse consoles himself by humming Taylor Swift’s ‘Mean’ under his breath. What? It’s not like it was his fault he’d ended up with a roommate whose musical tastes were about as tragic as Britney Spears’ performance in ‘Crossroads’ _;_ he’d looked to her as a study in stage presence, once.

Jesse slides into his seat next to Blaine, staring idly at his shoes. He can feel his face wanting to burn red-hot with shame, feel the twitch in his fingers that’s an ingrained reaction thanks to Vocal Adrenalin, everything had to be snappier, faster, sharper, to the point where they’d pushed themselves through hours of rehearsals just to get to that point before the main practice actually began.

He doesn’t let any of that deter him. Jesse hasn’t been this rattled since he’d danced his way through their second Nationals win with enough prescription pills to knock out a large African mammal, and yet –

Blaine just smiles at him softly when he walks back to their seats before standing up for his own turn, and it’s the best he’s felt in months, including the first time he saw Rachel again.

After letting his ball drift sideways into the gutter, Blaine comes back to sit beside him, bringing one knee up and tucking it under his chin as he re-ties his dangling shoelace. Instead of bringing up that they’re friends, again – like Jesse needs to be  _told,_ he’d sat through dozens of lectures by his father from ages five through seventeen,  _don’t try so hard, try harder, when it happens it will feel natural_ – he just says, “she wanted me to consider  _why_ I was doing this. She and Kurt had this… heart to heart, I guess, in the Gershwin, and I’m sure you know more about why that’s such a metaphorically significant thing than I do, but apparently they talked about love and careers. She didn’t want me sacrificing a chance to be a star at Dalton when I was probably going to have to sing back up to her at McKinley.” Blaine lifts his head, smiling. “It’s that, actually, that made me realise exactly why I  _had_ to transfer – I was okay with singing back up in show choir. I was just sick of having no creative control over my life.

“She’ll never admit to it, but I’m pretty sure that was her intention all along.”

Jesse recognises a significant moment when he sees one, even without the sudden crescendo of music he’d appoint to it in a movie adaptation of his own life. As it is, this moment reads to him as soft and understated, anyway, so he just claps a hand on Blaine’s shoulder, says, “For what it’s worth, I’m glad they didn’t make you sing back up for long. You’re no Rachel Berry, but –“

Blaine’s voice is just as quiet as his own as he nods towards the ball return, where both their bowling balls are spinning gently in their places. Right. “Jesse?”

“Yeah.”

“We are  _not_ going to create our own Broadway set in the choir room –  _nor_  are we going to sing at any shopping malls, I can’t believe you found out about  _that_ – but I’m willing to help you talk to Rachel, at least.”

Jesse’s still gaping, because how did – Santana, of course, although Jesse’s starting to wonder if his intentions weren’t highly transparent from the beginning. Blaine, Santana, they’re both a lot more perceptive than he gave them credit for at first.  

Forcing himself to breathe deeply, Jesse knocks down seven pins with relatively well-faked ease, but it’s not until he and Blaine abandon all pretence of actually caring about the game and climb up on the chairs to sing ‘Get the Party Started’ to the seven year old girl celebrating her birthday three lanes over that he feels like he might have gotten a strike.

*

‘I’m willing to help you talk to Rachel’ apparently translates to ‘I will drive you to the Lima Bean and buy you coffee whilst you work up the nerve to talk to Rachel again because I’m no help at all’, but Jesse appreciates the gesture, regardless. On Thursdays, Rachel apparently arrives there at promptly five o’clock for a green tea before heading to private vocal lessons with Shelby. Just the thought of it, of what Shelby had asked of him –  _expected_ of him – and what it had led him makes him suddenly miss the drama of his senior year. He’s never had so many opportunities since, although maybe that’s starting to change. If Blaine and Santana can keep him from charging at Hudson in blind rage more than once, he’s pretty sure he can go back to New York, and this time definitely make it on Broadway. He has the dedication, the self control  _and_ the need to take that step, to get it right, not to mention that he can musically narrate his Broadway journey in the process, should a show ever need to produce a behind the scenes video to generate a little publicity.

Santana meets them there, and promptly orders a skim milk caramel latte, grinning at Jesse like the Cheshire Cat the entire time. Blaine just continually glances between them, rolling his eyes with a fond smile. Even after their bonding moment at the bowling alley, Jesse’s not quite sure what to make of that.

“Better make this snappy, Anderson, Mini Schue,” Santana says, as they find a table. “Britts and I have an important engagement to keep tonight, and there’s only so much of this bozo mooning over Polly Pocket that I can take before I need to barf.”

Jesse can’t even find it in himself to be offended by that; he knows better than anyone the power of putting it all out there, of knowing that you’re saying exactly what you want to know, no more, no less. Ambiguity is the downfall of the masses, he’s seen it in so many  _American Idol_ contestants who don’t know how to a project a clear persona, and there’s absolutely nothing ambiguous about his love for Rachel Berry.

“Cheerios rehearsal?” Blaine asks, glancing at her as he stirs sugar into his coffee, “because if you’re bailing on me to spend your evening being lectured by Roz Washington about the importance of spreading your legs like a whore on the field, I might just be offended.” He places a hand on his chest, clutching at his heart like he’s been shot, and Jesse can’t help the snort he lets out. Blaine just looks so  _ridiculous_ in his earnestness.

“It’s just,” he says, knowing enough not to wither when they both turn to glare at him, “you look kind of like you belong on a children’s TV show, what with the bowties and the overdramatic gestures. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, a lot of the people I met at UCLA were happy just to have  _something_ to do whilst they tried to locate their talent, but I think you could really revolutionise the industry.”

“What on earth,” Blaine asks, around a mouthful of biscotti, “are you talking about?”

Jesse ignores it; he can’t expect everyone to understand his disdain of children’s television. He’s fairly sure he’d have won at least two Tonys by now if his mother hadn’t allowed his formative years to be wasted upon the soulless automatons that pass for singers on those shows. He should have been listening to the best of Elton John before he was even out of the womb. 

“Krusty the Clown here just said about ten offensive things,” Santana fills in, smirking at him. He almost admires her for her continued commitment to going head to head with him. “But before we forget that this is all about me, I’m actually meeting Brittany to celebrate. She got into dance school in Chicago. They’re like the freaky lovechild of Mr Schue and Dreads, some hippie school that’s all about expressing your feelings, or whatever. They thought the drawing of Lord Tubbington on her admission paper was all about how she wants to star in  _Cats,_ or something.”

Jesse doesn’t even bother to hide his incredulous laugh. Blaine’s eyes droop slightly, and his eyes seem to flicker down towards his cup, picking at the lid seal, but Jesse’s not quite sure what to make of it. After a moment, though, he leans over and gives Santana a giant hug, his arms wrapped tight around his neck, and Jesse’s suddenly so nostalgic for the other night, at the bowling alley. Anyone else in the New Directions would have kicked him out of their house, right from the beginning, and yet –

Eventually Santana pats Blaine on the shoulder, and he pulls away, slumping back down in his seat. The hesitancy is still there in his eyes, though, and Jesse aims to get to the bottom of it, when he’s finished talking to Rachel. After everything, he thinks he maybe owes Blaine a song.

“What? Just because I think it’s ridiculous, I’m still totally proud, okay.” She turns to Jesse, snapping her fingers, and Blaine jerks his head upwards. “You’d better have some ideas for our performance at Nationals, because we are totally beating Sebastian and the Village People down next week and then – with two national titles this year, I’m getting in anywhere I want.”

Blaine’s smile is lopsided, his eyes a little clouded as he says, “They wear  _blazers,_ Santana, and the closest they’ve ever gotten to the YMCA is Thad trying to come up with acronyms for subsection four of the rule book. You’re  _really_ going to call them The Village People?”

“Oh, Blaine,” Santana sighs, “Deny it all you like, but Thad is totally heading up the queer collective in that joint. It’s a  _boarding school._ There’s a reason they all have ties, and here’s a hint – it’s not for the reputation of the school.”

“Be that as it may,” Jesse says, because do they  _always_ get this off topic?  He’s not one for admitting that he tends to overdramatise things, much, but when he does? At least he can say he’s actually good at it. “As happy as I am for you, I thought the entire point of this meeting was to help me devise a plan to win the love of my life back.”

Blaine and Santana’s dumbfounded looks are so perfectly in sync that he almost wants to clap.

Instead, he just says, “If Vocal Adrenalin, you know, actively recruited rather than offering diplomat immunity to petty thieves in exchange for their accents, you guys would totally be in. You’re talented, and Blaine, if your growth’s that stunted due to caffeine, you’d have no problem. Santana – they’re always looking for people willing to sabotage.”

“I’m flattered,” Santana says dryly, clutching her hands to her heart the way Blaine had earlier, and Jesse laughs, feeling something tug inside him as Santana smiles in response. He’s frowning though, then; there’s no way he actually  _cares_ about her, no way he gets this emotional about a  _smile,_ except –

After everything he’s said and done, she’s still here, dependable in a way so few people in his life have been lately. He hasn’t even been able to rely on the seminal talent of Edith Piaf and her greatest hits to inspire him through his morning warm-up routine in the shower, not least because his mother has hidden his iPod dock. He knows the words by heart still, can sing without the music, but he swears he can still taste the dust of his broken LA dreams when he wakes in the mornings, make it difficult to breathe, let alone correctly enunciate in French.

“You’re  _perfect_ for Rachel, I don’t know how I didn’t see it sooner. You’re both loud and kind of endearing when you really shouldn’t be, and any child you have is destined for a mental breakdown around fifteen, at which point Auntie Tana can sweep her way in and work her magic,” Santana says, after a moment’s pause, glancing to Blaine for confirmation. Blaine just shakes his head, almost imperceptibly, and yeah, he knows what it’s like to be speechless at the mere mention of Rachel Berry. He still is, in some ways, because  _this_ is what she’s driven him to in his quest to be the Fiyero to her Elphaba, sitting in an entirely plebeian coffee shop in the middle of Lima, Ohio, with people he might actually consider to be  _friends._ It’s about the only the only thing more impossible than him flubbing a note whilst singing “Bohemian Rhapsody”. And yet –

“It takes a bitch to know a bitch, you get what I’m saying, and you’re pretty much Paris Hilton fell into a briar patch, but you own it. I’m impressed by that. And honestly, Rachel  _needs_ a new duet partner, there’s nothing worse than watching Finn chase her around the choir room looking like he just discovered that Breadstix makes pizza.” Jesse just nods numbly, because he has no idea what she’s talking about, but this is no time to let his show face slip, and he’s a seasoned professional; how dare UCLA claim that a signed letter from April Rhodes about how she bawled throughout his roller derby karaoke performance of “You Making Loving Fun” doesn’t count if she was paying him?

“What Santana  _means_ to say,” Blaine says, reaching out across the table and giving Jesse a quick clap on the shoulder, “is that she told me what you said, about her being able to make it, and she wanted to thank you. Kurt and Rachel have their NYADA dreams, but it’s hard, for the rest of us – who don’t know exactly where we’re headed, or –“ and  _oh,_ Jesse suddenly understands a little of Blaine’s odd behaviour, today. He can’t say he gets it, Jesse’s always gone to great lengths to make sure he’s the one leaving, not the one left behind. But he knows how to put on an empathetic face, and he doesn’t even have to fake it really; the best show faces are the ones that are natural, and Blaine’s gentle nod in response makes him wonder if he’s finally got this. He just needs to win Rachel back, and then he’ll have the perfect emotional energy to channel on stage. It will make the perfect story for when he’s accepting his first Tony Award at the tender age of twenty-three, although he’ll probably leave out the part where Blaine texted him to reject his idea of singing “Eternal Flame”.

“It’s nice, once in a while, to be reminded of why we’re trying – although you should probably tone down the asshole act, just a little. I’ve got Santana to remind me of all the possible ways in which my bowties are hideous and to call me Donald the Duck. It almost makes me  _not_ want to become a performer, the stories she’ll tell when I’m –“

“That’s a good one, actually,” Santana interrupts, draining the last of her coffee and pushing a napkin in Blaine’s direction, before pulling a pen – how on earth does she fit anything down that shirt? “Write it down, Humphrey B Bear.”

But Blaine’s not listening, humming to himself as he drums his fingers against the edge of the table, and  _can’t stop me, don’t stop me._ It’s ridiculous, he’s Jesse St James and he should not be approving of such appalling dance moves, he has a reputation to uphold and if there’s one thing his time spent criticising reality TV has taught him, there’s  _always_ a camera somewhere. But, it’s the first time since he flew out to LA with his dreams pinned squarely to his chest and the “Phantom of the Opera” soundtrack blasting in his ears, since he flew to New York with Rachel Berry’s performance of “My Man” like a second heartbeat with how it pulsed through him, that he’s felt like this particular Queen favourite might actually be true. And so -

*

The fourth time he sees Rachel, he’s in the middle of an entirely impromptu performance of “Don’t Stop Me Now” with Blaine and Santana, the three of them managing a vaguely coordinated two-step on the counter that might be good enough to place at a national competition on pure energy and enthusiasm alone, although Jesse will  _never_ admit to that. There’s still something to be said for technical efficiency, but watching Blaine and Santana twirl each other, narrowly avoiding collapsing to the ground as the heel of Blaine’s shoe catches on the edge of the counter, he realises – there’s just as much to be said for this, too, for the combination of elements that shouldn’t work together, but do.

By all accounts, he shouldn’t love Rachel Berry after all this time, and yet –

_If you wanna have a good time, just give me a call._

The song wasn’t exactly designed to be for her, but now that he’s up here – no one ever said that Jesse St James couldn’t rock the hell out of an impromptu performance. Rachel’s standing at the front of the crowd that’s gathered, smile bright like as she snaps her fingers to the beat, completely ignoring the fact that Hudson is standing behind her glaring, a beached whale looking totally out of place without a group of environmentalists to soothe his wounded pride.  _Can’t stop me, don’t stop me._ At some point, she gives him a thumbs up, twirling around a little on the spot, and he’s about to lean out, pull her up onto the counter, lost to everything but the way his love for Rachel and his love for music pulses through him, all one and the some until his entire body is a discotheque, Rachel’s smile flashing bright before him like all the stage lights they’re destined to deserve.

_I’ll make a supersonic woman of you._

She stays where she is, though, smiling sheepishly at him, and Jesse thinks that he may just be okay with that. Given how much fun Blaine and Santana are having either side of him, he thinks they’d help him perform the entire American Songbook to Rachel, but he might not need it. Rachel Berry’s always taken time to weigh up her options, and he’s just glad to be in her peripheral vision again. Jesse St James is a star, even from there he can shine brighter than anything else in her existence.

He might not have Rachel back, not just yet, but he’s planted a spark. After his third win at Nationals with Vocal Adrenalin, he’s got enough experience with pyrotechnics to know that the whole thing will go up in flames. Besides, he’s seen Blaine and Santana’s performance of  _It’s Not Unusual_  on Youtube – he keeps meaning to seek out that Jacob Ben Israel creep, but that might involve admitting that he’s the one who’d liked Rachel’s performance of  _My Man_ hundreds of times under fake aliases. What? Just because he gets blocked from commenting on certain videos occasionally doesn’t mean he’s going to give up pointing out the technical inefficiencies of people’s attempts to sing – and he knows they’ll help him, even if he can’t manage it alone.

Besides, St Lionel is  _totally_ an inspired pseudonym, anonymous whilst still giving Rachel the opportunity to realise that, after everything, he still appreciated her talent above all else except his own, and even then, he thinks they might be equal, actually.

The mere thought of it wounds him, just a little, but as he watches Blaine and Santana shimmy in front of him, both of them caught up in the music, Jesse realises that his own personal life has moved from Adele levels of depressing to an upbeat version of Queen and that, in the end, is what will help him.

He’s definitely gained enough life experience to write the perfect Broadway roles for them to star in.

 


End file.
